I like to do short writing exercises. Picture something mentally then describe it. I think it helps your writing skills grow and stay strong like 30 minutes on the elliptical on level 15 does for your heart.

A burnt silver hued mailbox, half full of celery green scum mingled with sludge black ditch water, made a nice sunbathing spot for the young leatherback snapper, who didn't give two hoots about me setting up my easel next to the ditch. Did a swerving car or a push from father time scare the box from its home five feet above the earth? The turtle wasn't talking. A sun washed ghostly white thirty nine was still readable. It made me wonder who used to get postcards and Burpee catalogs delivered here. Maybe air mailed home sick letters from a husband or youngest son serving overseas. The rusted woven wire fence was holding the rotted fence posts up at odd angles like drunken friends helping drunker friends stand up. Purple headed ironweed danced in the early October breeze above a thick carpet of crabgrass that had almost captured the field stone path to the front porch. A lion yellow and rose pink blanket of poison sumac enveloped almost the entire front of the grey clapboard home. Faded Ford red peaked at me thru the acorn brown brush pile that used to be the summer home for beans, cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes; giving away the hiding spot of the family 8N tractor.